Farming on parade as combine stars in Lord Mayor’s Show

A state of the art combine harvester is taking to the streets of central London for one of the UK’s most historic parades.

John Deere has teamed up with The Worshipful Company of Farmers and the NFU for this year’s Lord Mayor’s Show (Saturday November 8) in a campaign to encourage the public to back British farming. A John Deere S685i combine, specially decorated with vinyl graphics depicting the great British countryside, is being used to demonstrate how our food is produced. The John Deere combine will be driven from Mansion House to St Paul’s Cathedral and on to the Strand before a return leg along the Embankment and Queen Victoria Street and back to Mansion House. The combine’s 6m (20ft) 620R header will be towed by a 1946 John Deere Model D tractor.

Eight young farmers representing the NFU’s seven English regions and Wales will accompany the combine to promote farming and agriculture as a modern and vibrant industry that provides a wide range of career opportunities such as agronomists, scientists, vets and engineers.

This year is the 687th Lord Mayor’s Show and is expected to attract crowds of more than half a million people on the day, lining the pavements on the three mile long procession through the City of London, as well as millions more watching the live broadcast on BBC 1.

John Deere Marketing Manager Chris Wiltshire said: “John Deere is proud to support British farming and to demonstrate that support with our combine in the Lord Mayor’s Show. It’s not often we get the chance to show a machine of this size in a town or city, and taking part in this parade in the centre of London is very special.”

NFU Vice President Guy Smith added: “We are very honoured and excited to take part in one of London’s biggest and most prestigious events. Being involved with the Lord Mayor’s Show is a wonderful opportunity to showcase farming to a wide audience, many who won’t have seen a combine harvester up close before. The combine will look stunning and will be specially branded to promote our ‘Back British Farming’ messages and to let the public know that farmers are proud to produce their food.”

Nick Padwick from the Worshipful Company of Farmers commented: “This year’s Lord Mayor’s Show is going to be a great opportunity for us to showcase young people, as we have had the privilege to engage with eight young farmers coming into the industry. This will hopefully show the public that farming has many related industries, so if someone watching sees a young girl or boy who is training to be a dairy specialist, a vet, somebody in education or going down the road of a machinery engineer, this will demonstrate that farming is not just about growing crops. John Deere this year has also been very kind to lend us one of their largest combines, which will give the general public a view of how food is produced before it gets to their plates.”

Combine harvester facts and figures

The S Series combine harvester S685i is one of a range of rotary combines, with three other models available from John Deere in the UK and Ireland.

This combine can cut up to 150 acres of crops a day, harvesting up to 750 tonnes of grain; that is about the size of 79 football pitches.

A combine can harvest a wide range of crops including barley for beer and wheat for bread and biscuits, as well as peas and beans.

The UK currently produces on average 15 million tonnes of wheat each year, nearly 7 million tonnes of barley and 600,000 tonnes of oats.

5 million tonnes of wheat are milled each year which produces 4 million tonnes of flour.

Each tonne of wheat will make 1533 loaves of bread, which means one combine can harvest enough wheat in one day to make 1.2 million loaves.

85% of the wheat used by UK millers is grown in the UK.

Nearly 12 million loaves of bread are sold in the UK every day.

Each tonne of malting barley can make up to 10,000 pints of beer, so in one day one combine can cut enough barley to make 6 million pints of beer.